How will Brexit affect the British territory of Gibraltar?

The following has not yet been verified. Please improve it by logging in and editing it. If you believe that is not sufficient to solve the problem, please discuss it with the community on the Talk Page. If you think that this article should be removed, please contact [email protected]

Gibraltarians proudly British and equally European

Border is a 300-year-old point of contention thousands cross daily

Spain holds a veto over British terms for Brexit – and the Rock is a pawn

As soon as you leave Gibraltar’s airport onto Winston Churchill Avenue, it’s obvious that this UK outpost on Spain’s southern coast is very proud to be British. The subject of a three centuries-long sovereignty battle between London and Madrid, the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar voted for sole UK control by around 99 percent in referendums in 2002 and 1967.

However, Gibraltarian’s identity is also extremely pro-European.Speaking to WikiTribune, Gibraltar Chronicle editor Brian Reyes described themselves as having a “British nationality, but with a Mediterranean dimension to it” that’s “uniquely rooted in this rock.”

And although Gibraltar voted overwhelmingly to remain within the European Union (EU) in the UK’s 2016 referendum, as it is dragged out by the UK leaving this bloc, it could be one of the most punished by Brexit. Therefore WikiTribune visited to find out more.

Despite being more than 1,000 miles from the UK, fish and chip shops and outdated red telephone boxes still made their way to Gibraltar but unlike these clichés, the stereotypical, gloomy British attitude didn’t. That may be a good thing as a positive nature may be required in Gibraltar’s uncertain post Brexit future.

The 2.6-square-mile territory has boomed in the last 30 years thanks to its low corporation tax attracting companies which are staffed by thousands of Spanish and Gibraltarian workers who commute across the Spanish border daily.

Under the EU pillar of free movement this is made easier, with up to 40 percent of Gibraltar’s workforce (UK Lords report: PDF) commuting to “the Rock” daily and roughly 94 percent of Gibraltar’s tourists coming via land through Spain in 2014 (Open Britain report). This could all change.

Brexit negotiations are still ongoing and the UK’s relationship with the EU unclear, but a key tenant of being an EU member is allowing EU members’ citizens the ability to move freely between them. When the UK is no longer a member, unless special Brexit negotiations are made, the frictionless border between Gibraltar and Spain will cease to exist.

Send for more monkeys

Gibraltar is a historically fought-over territory, being a crucial entry and exit point to the Mediterranean Sea. It was captured by Anglo-Dutch forces in 1704, during the War of the Spanish Succession,and Spain ceded it to Great Britain as part of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, when they lost.

Although the headland has been home to the only wild monkey population in Europe before the British took control, legend has it that while while its Barbary macaques remain in Gibraltar it will stay British owned. This prompted Prime Minister Winston Churchill to import more monkeys from Morocco during World War Two, when their number dipped to just seven.

Gibraltar’s Barbary macaques are often called “Barbary apes” but they are actually a species of monkey. Nobody is quite sure how they got to Gibraltar, with some theorizing they were brought from Morocco as that’s their main habitat area. (CC BY-SA 4.0; Photo by: Harry Ridgewelll/WikiTribune)

Despite there now being peace between Gibraltar and Spain, Brexit prompted then Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister, Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo, to call for shared British-Spanish sovereignty of Gibraltar, causing a former senior UK politician to threaten that the UK could go to war with Spain (Vox).

In 1987 Gibraltar’s naval dockyard dominated by British military made up 60 percent of its economy. Today, it constitutes just seven. Gibraltar is now less crucial as a military base, but it’s booming as a financial hub, attracting insurance, gaming, and gambling companies from all over Europe with its standard 10 percent corporate tax rate (PwC).

PEOPLE IN GIBRALTAR SECTION NOW

While the UK’s Union Jack flag can be seen all over Gibraltar, the territory’s gift shops are full of soft toy barbary macaques sporting EU flags

Gibraltar Chronicle editor Brian Reyes told WikiTribune there’s a lot of post-referendum uncertainty here but “this is a pretty resilient community. I mean, we’ve seen challenge in the past … we’re optimists, seriously.” Meanwhile on the mainland, 65 percent of UK citizens are either ‘not particularly confident’ or ‘not at all confident’ that Theresa May can secure them a good Brexit deal, according to a January poll by What UK Thinks: EU.

ADD PEOPLE FROM GIBRALTAR HERE

SPAIN SECTION

The runway of Gibraltar’s airport crosses Winston Churchill Avenue, the only entry or exit road into the territory, forcing walkers, workers and commuters to wait several times a day while flights take off and land.

With Spanish workers so important to Gibraltar’s economy, this border is vital to the territory. A frictionless crossing and a thriving Gibraltar is very important to workers coming from the Spanish town of La Linea just across the border too, as it has one of the highest unemployment rates in Europe at about 35.5 percent (TheOlivePress) HAVE YOU GOT A MORE DEFINITIVE SOURCE FOR THIS? .

Commuters and vehicles are held back while a flight takes off from the runaway which intersects the road to the Gibraltar-Spanish border (CC BY-SA 4.0; Photo by: Harry Ridgewelll/WikiTribune)

But crossing the border isn’t always plain sailing. Reyes told WikiTribune “the border has in the past been used almost as a political pressure point. So it’s like a tap. Turn it on, turn it off.”

In 2014 Spain imposed three days of increased vehicle searches in protest to the construction of an artificial reef created in Gibraltarian water’s that Spain saw as its own, creating huge queues on the border. A spokesman for ASCTEG, a group representingSpanish workers working in Gibraltar, told WikiTribune: “Gibraltar was accepted in the UEFA [European soccer Championship] right. Problems on the border, two, three, four days … Someone from the British Royal family came to Gibraltar for a visit, border closed.”

ASCTEG spokesman Juan Hose says the Spanish PP (People’s Party) uses excuses of drugs, arms, and money smuggling across the border to justify searching everyone and causing long queues, but they never find anything and that really their motivation is political. “It’s ridiculous,” he says. “When we are so close … The two cities are together … it’s like a big city.”

Local Gibraltarian Stephanie Martinez told WikiTribune the worst she’s experienced “were three hour walking queues and twelve hour car queues” when things were really bad “political wise” for what would otherwise be a five minute walk through the border. Another commuter says the border problems arise “when these police officers from Madrid come down to help, the ones with the hats.”

While under EU membership, Gibraltar has been protected by such disputes to a degree, with the EU rejecting Spain’s demands to dismantle the reef and there being no threat of a permanent border closure, as this would be against EU membership rules.

Vehicles queuing at the border for about an hour and a half on their commute home on 24/01/18 (CC BY-SA 4.0; Photo by: Harry Ridgewell/WikiTribune)

Revenge a long time coming

In 1969 Spanish dictator Franco closed the Spanish-Gibraltar border and it was not reopened until the 1980’s, after the UK threatened Spain that unless they re-opened the border the UK would veto Spain’s entry to the European Community in 1986 (now European Union). Now the tables have turned.

The EU gave Spain the option to veto a transitional period and any Brexit deal offered to the UK from applying to Gibraltar, in its 2017 draft Brexit guidelines, posing another problem for the UK Prime Minister Theresa May.

Gibraltar’s Deputy Chief Minister, Joseph Garcia, told WikiTribune: “People felt that it [giving Spain a veto] was an unnecessary slap in the face to people [Gibraltarians] who had voted 96 percent to remain in the European Union.”

But Garcia says that Gibraltar’s government’s view is that clause 22, which essentially gives Spain the veto, “is illegal” and that they will challenge it in court if Spain chooses to invoke it. However, if Spain vetoed the UK’s Brexit deal from applying to Gibraltar, and Gibraltar’s challenge was unsuccessful, would Theresa May reject a UK deal which didn’t include Gibraltar? It seems unlikely HAS ANYONE SAID THIS? WE NEED ATTRIBUTION that she would put a population of roughly 30,000, ahead of 65 million people in the UK, even if Garcia says David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, assured the Gibraltarian Government that “they would not do the deal without Gibraltar.”

Fredrick Martin, a senior trade union official for Unite’s Gibraltar trade union branch, and soon to be president of the Cross Frontier Group, a group representing businesses and trade unions on both sides of the border, says: “I don’t think that they’ll [the UK will] actually believe that it’s good and proper to throw them [Gibraltar] underneath the bus, as it were, for the purpose of getting a better deal. I don’t think that’s going to be the case. Fingers crossed.”

But where would no deal leave Gibraltar? WE NEED TO EXPLAIN NO DEAL. HERE OR HIGHER UP? After the UK’s decision to leave the EU, Gibraltar’s Minister for Financial Services and Gaming, Albert Isola, told WikiTribune it felt like a “morgue”, but for Gibraltarians it might not be as bad as first envisaged. He says Gibraltar’s government completed a sectoral analysis of the effect of Brexit and it found that roughly 90 percent of its financial services sector is accessing the UK market and 10 percent accessing the EU market. Minister Isola says the UK has assured them that Gibraltar will have the same access to the UK market post Brexit and that has given businesses confidence.

Picture of Peter

However, the founder of Ramparts law firm, a business based in the UK and Gibraltar, providing support for financial and tech-related companies, says: “I can’t think of many people who, or in fact anyone, who’s said that they’ve watched this unfold with confidence. Most people consider this to be a kind of train wreck, in slow motion, watching the establishment in the UK tear itself apart to some extent.”

Peter Howitt says “a decision needs to be made about whether the UK or the Conservative Party is gonna pursue a little England, splendid isolationist policy, which is a risk, I think. Or whether it’s gonna actually look at what the UK’s position should be in the modern world.”

Image information

We have no ads and no paywall. If you believe in collaboration to produce quality neutral journalism for everyone, it is important that you sign up to support our work financially. Every penny goes towards improving WikiTribune! Thanks, Jimmy Wales

WikiTribuneWikiTribuneOpen menuCloseSearchLikeBackNextOpen menuClose menuPlay videoRSS FeedShare on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on RedditFollow us on InstagramFollow us on YoutubeConnect with us on LinkedinConnect with us on DiscordEmail us